Authors Guild To Members: De-link Amazon.com

theodp writes: "Angered by Amazon.com's practice of offering [prominently placed] used editions of relatively new titles, the Authors Guild is urging authors to replace Amazon.com links on their web sites with links to Barnesandnoble.com and BookSense.com. Amazon spokesperson Patty Smith insisted the policy really "ends up helping authors and publishers" although neither the author nor the publisher receives royalties from Amazon's used book sales, and Smith could not cite an author or genre helped by the availability of used editions. " CD: I'd imagine they don't want us to go to our local used book stores either? This is the second time they've tried to call Amazon to task for this.

Comments

What about Holocaust deniers?

[CaptainPotato]

About the only genre I can think of that is assisted by the sales of used books is Holocaust denial literature/propaganda. Many so-called 'classic' texts are out of print, and the only way to get them is secondhand. Furthermore, many of them provide their works free of charge on their web pages, so the sale of secondhand denial tracts won't hurt their sales in that regard, either.

In addition, as far as Holocaust deniers go, any publicity is good publicity, and anybody who buys a piece of Holocaust denial propaganda - whether new or secondhand - is an additional 'convert' to the cause - as far as deniers are concerned, most don't care whether one believes them or not - a new reader is potentially a new supporter... also, deniers cite often that anybody interested in their stuff must be positively inclined towards it - just check out what they write about their web page hits...

Re: http://www.zundelsite.org/101.html ! deny yes!

[larien]

no people were exterminated on german soil in death camps

Hrm, quite possibly; the most infamous camp of Auschwitz was in Poland. Also, it depends on whether you define a gas chamber (or whatever) as a "death camp".

To be honest, I've never looked into the details enough, but I believe there to be a lot of evidence supporting the view that it happened; certainly the Jews were persecuted by the Nazi regime in the 30s.

In any event, even if it didn't happen, it should still serve as a warning against extremist views.

Re: http://www.zundelsite.org/101.html ! deny yes!

[little_fluffy_clouds]

Don't forget nizkor.org